There and Gone Again: Syntactic Structure In Memory

This dissertation addresses the relationship between hierarchical syntactic structure and memory in language processing of individual sentences. Hierarchical syntactic structure is a key part of human languages and language processing but its integration with memory has been uneasy ever since Sachs (1967) demonstrated that the syntactic structure of individual sentences is lost in explicit sentence recall tasks much faster than other linguistic information (lexical, semantic, etc.). Nonetheless, psycholinguists have continued to draw on memory in syntactic processing theories, in part due to (i) the explanatory power that memory can give to sentence processing hypotheses, and (ii) the conflicting results that continually replicate the basic findings of Sachs (1967, 1974) while on the other hand supporting robust, long-term implicit persistence of syntactic structure in the form of abstract syntactic priming. The dissertation provides three case studies on syntactic structure in memory at three different time points over the course of processing. One case-study revisits syntactic persistence during the timescale which has classically provided the bulk of the evidence against syntactic structure in memory, from late in online processing to early offline processing, using a comparison of ellipsis-antecedent resolution and recognition memory over time. A second case-study looks at the sensitivity of proposed memory-operations to subject-verb agreement versus reflexive anaphora at the earliest timescale, during online sentence processing. Finally, the second half of the dissertation focuses on the reliability of abstract syntactic priming in comprehension, with an extended test of Syntactic Adaptation theory (Fine, Jaeger, Farmer, & Qian, 2013). The dissertation argues that while there is still some good evidence in favor of syntactic structure in memory, theories which intend to control most of online sentence processing from memory are probably premature. Even if memory does turn out to play a role in the syntactic processing of individual sentences, domain general, declarative memory is most likely an insufficient architecture to capture even the data which is most supportive of a memory-based account

Cytokine tuning of intestinal epithelial function

The intestine serves as both our largest single barrier to the external environment and the host of more immune cells than any other location in our bodies. Separating these potential combatants is a single layer of dynamic epithelium composed of heterogeneous epithelial subtypes, each uniquely adapted to carry out a subset of the intestine’s diverse functions. In addition to its obvious role in digestion, the intestinal epithelium is responsible for a wide array of critical tasks, including maintaining barrier integrity, preventing invasion by microbial commensals and pathogens, and modulating the intestinal immune system. Communication between these epithelial cells and resident immune cells is crucial for maintaining homeostasis and coordinating appropriate responses to disease and can occur through cell-to-cell contact or by the release or recognition of soluble mediators. The objective of this review is to highlight recent literature illuminating how cytokines and chemokines, both those made by and acting on the intestinal epithelium, orchestrate many of the diverse functions of the intestinal epithelium and its interactions with immune cells in health and disease. Areas of focus include cytokine control of intestinal epithelial proliferation, cell death, and barrier permeability. In addition, the modulation of epithelial-derived cytokines and chemokines by factors such as interactions with stromal and immune cells, pathogen and commensal exposure, and diet will be discussed

Re-imagining teaching for technology - Enriched learning spaces: An academic development model

shortcomings of traditional teaching and learning environments. Academic development, an area that has received little attention in this context, can be designed to provide strong opportunities for university teachers to re-imagine their teaching for these new spaces while also building their leadership capacity. This chapter discusses challenges that teachers face in transforming their teaching practices and proposes a model for academic development to support this. Two case studies demonstrate the flexibility and efficacy of the model and provide pointers for further adoption in the higher education context

Floodplain Lake Assessment and Fish Assemblage Dynamics in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley

Floodplain lakes in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) provide valuable freshwater resources for states in which they occur. Thirty lakes in portions of Mississippi and Arkansas were surveyed for chlorophyll-a fluorescence and turbidity using handheld meters to determine relationships between chlorophyll-a concentrations and suspended solids. High applicability of handheld meters in the MAV presents economic benefits for monitoring the numerous lakes in the region. Additionally, twelve lakes within Bear Creek watershed, Mississippi were studied to determine how hydrologic connectivity shapes fish communities. Isolated and permanently connected floodplain lakes exhibited characteristically lacustrine and rheophilic fish communities, respectively, diversifying fishery management opportunities. Lastly, spring diel temperature and oxygen dynamics, as well as juvenile fish communities, were assessed within three habitats in a floodplain lake – pelagic environment, margin and contiguous wetlands. Variability in temperature and oxygen across the three habitats promotes spring habitat heterogeneity while supporting distinct but overlapping juvenile fish assemblages

Effects of glucosamine versus chondroitin sulfate in reducing joint space narrowing in knee osteoarthritis

Objective: To determine if over the counter supplements, chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine, in combination or alone, are effective in the treatment of joint space narrowing (JSN) in knee osteoarthritis. Design: Systematic Literature Review Methods: Database search of PubMed and MEDLINE using the search terms “glucosamine”, “chondroitin sulfate”, “osteoarthritis”, and joint space narrowing. Filters were implemented to include articles that only dealt with human subjects, that were published in 2000 or later, and were full-text. Articles were excluded if they were cohort studies, reviews, non-English papers, or had pain as the only outcome. Results: Sawitzke et al.primary outcomes revealed no overall significant difference between mean JSW loss over a two-year period between treatment and placebo groups. Secondary outcomes showed no significant likelihood of radiographic progression with treatment groups versus placebo. Fransen et al.observed a significant decrease in JSN in 2 years with glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate combined but there was no statistical significant in JSN with glucosamine or chondroitin sulfate alone as compared to placebo. There was also a small reduction in knee pain observed versus placebo. The meta-analysis by Lee et. alobserved those studies in which there was a small protective effect on minimum JSN with glucosamine and chondroitin individually after two years but there was no statistical significance seen at one year. Conclusion: Overall, studies showed that chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine, and especially the combination of the two, do have a small protective effect depending on the severity of knee osteoarthritis, the number of years the supplement is utilized, and the drug dosage

The Effect of Replacing Fetal Bovine Serum with Platelet Releasate on the Characterization of MSCs

Substituting fetal bovine serum (FBS) for platelet derivatives in mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) culture media is a current area of interest in orthopedic regenerative medicine. FBS, commonly used in ex vivo cell expansion, is a xenogen and can cause an immunological response in the subject after transplantation. Our objective was to determine if platelet releasate (PR) is a suitable replacement for FBS in the isolation and expansion of equine MSCs. MSCs were isolated from the raw bone marrow of five horses and plated with media containing either 10% FBS or 10% autologous PR. Cells were passaged three times once a sufficient confluency was reached, then cryopreserved. At each feeding, cells were photographed and counted, and morphology, debris, and confluence were recorded. Compared to cells grown in FBS, the MSCs grown in PR media had poorer morphology and showed signs of osteo-differentiation. Additionally, cells of the PR condition grew larger than those of FBS, which is an indication of 2 cell degradation. From this, we concluded that PR is not a suitable replacement for FBS in equine MSC cell expansion media

Analysis And Design Of Wideband Passive Mixer-First Receivers

This dissertation focuses on the design of wideband SAW-less receivers for softwaredefined radios. The entire body of work is based on a single RF front-end architecture type: a passive mixer connected directly to the antenna port of the radio, without an LNA or matching network up front. This structure is inherently wideband which allows for a single receiver front-end to operate at a wide range of frequencies, as tuned by its local oscillator (LO). Additionally, the mixer exhibits the property of transparency from the baseband port of the radio to the RF port of the radio, and vice versa. The focus of the first half of the thesis is on developing a simple theoretical framework for the impedance characteristics of the passive mixer, and implementing a maximally flexible receiver which utilizes the mixer's transparency to the fullest extent. Additionally, it is shown that mixing with 8 non-overlapping phases instead of the traditional 4 has benefits beyond harmonic rejection extending to improved noise performance and increased impedance tuning range. This receiver exhibits low noise figure (~3dB), excellent wideband linearity (IIP3[GREATER-THAN OR EQUAL TO]25dBm), and unprecedented RF impedance control from the baseband side of the passive mixer. Another wideband receiver is presented which explores increasing the number of LO phases even further to 16 and 32, increasing the impedance matching range. The same chip contains a circuit technique for alleviating the shunting effects of LO phase overlap on mixer conversion gain, noise, and impedance match range. Finally in a new design, the power consumption of the receiver architecture is decreased by a factor of 5x (and not scaling with RF frequency). This is done using a resonant LO drive with 8 non-overlapping phases, incorporating the large mixer gate capacitance directly into the LC tank of the VCO. Baseband power consumption is also reduced by reusing current in the four baseband amplifier channels, and performing harmonic rejection, all in one stage of amplification

Introduction to the Sage Handbook of E-learning Research, 2nd ed.

The publication of the second edition of the SAGE Handbook of E-learningResearch attests to the continued need for study and understanding of learningpractices in contemporary technology-supported and technology-enabled educational, work and social settings. In preparing the first edition (Andrews &Haythornthwaite, 2007a), we found that while there had been considerabledevelopment in teaching and learning online, and in learning design, there wasno coherent view of what constituted research in the field. Writing for this 2016edition, we find there has been much progress in research, but it has taken many new directions, each wrestling with how to analyze and represent learning in an era of continuing change in technologies, learning practices, and knowledge distribution. This volume, like the last, takes stock of progress in e-learning research, highlighting advances as well as new directions in studies and methods for approaching and keeping up with changes in learning in an e-society

Comparison of the Interactions of Transferrin Receptor and Transferrin Receptor 2 with Transferrin and the Hereditary Hemochromatosis Protein HFE

The transferrin receptor (TfR) interacts with two proteins important for iron metabolism, transferrin (Tf) and HFE, the protein mutated in hereditary hemochromatosis. A second receptor for Tf, TfR2, was recently identified and found to be functional for iron uptake in transfected cells (Kawabata, H., Germain, R. S., Vuong, P. T., Nakamaki, T., Said, J. W., and Koeffler, H. P. (2000) J. Biol. Chem. 275, 16618-16625). TfR2 has a pattern of expression and regulation that is distinct from TfR, and mutations in TfR2 have been recognized as the cause of a non-HFE linked form of hemochromatosis (Camaschella, C., Roetto, A., Cali, A., De Gobbi, M., Garozzo, G., Carella, M., Majorano, N., Totaro, A., and Gasparini, P. (2000) Nat. Genet. 25, 14-15). To investigate the relationship between TfR, TfR2, Tf, and HFE, we performed a series of binding experiments using soluble forms of these proteins. We find no detectable binding between TfR2 and HFE by co-immunoprecipitation or using a surface plasmon resonance-based assay. The affinity of TfR2 for iron-loaded Tf was determined to be 27 nM, 25-fold lower than the affinity of TfR for Tf. These results imply that HFE regulates Tf-mediated iron uptake only from the classical TfR and that TfR2 does not compete for HFE binding in cells expressing both forms of TfR